


I Could Write A Book

by anthean



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bookstore, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Epistolary, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-11
Updated: 2015-02-11
Packaged: 2018-03-11 15:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3331022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthean/pseuds/anthean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not like Cosette and Eponine have never met before—they see each other at bookseller training, and they pass each other in the breakroom, and there is, of course, the "horrific shared childhood abuse" thing that they have, without ever exchanging words, mutually decided never to speak of. But somehow, despite having both worked at the same chain bookstore for the past six months, they've never actually been scheduled at the same time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Could Write A Book

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QueenAsha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenAsha/gifts).



> For QueenAsha, who requested "Modern AU set in a working environment"! I wasn't really sure what to write, but then I remembered that I know KIND OF A LOT about working in a huge corporate chain bookstore. I hope you like this!

It's not like Cosette and Eponine have never met before—they see each other at bookseller training, and they pass each other in the breakroom, and there is, of course, the "horrific shared childhood abuse" thing that they have, without ever exchanging words, mutually decided never to speak of. But somehow, despite having both worked at the same chain bookstore for the past six months, they've never actually been scheduled at the same time. Cosette sees Eponine across the store on her way out of work, and Eponine's success at badgering customers into buying membership cards is _legendary_ , but Cosette always opens the store in the mornings and Eponine is invariably scheduled for the closing shift.  
  
Cosette is restocking the _Regional Gardening - Fruit Trees & Shrubs_ section when it all starts to change. The _Gardening_ section is her favorite part of the store—tucked in a remote corner a few shelves down from _Cultural Studies_ , it rarely gets much traffic from customers who are more interested in _Fiction Bestsellers_ and _Self-Help_. More importantly, it's far enough from the Customer Service desk that she can't be press-ganged into various projects by overzealous managers. Cosette often retreats to the _Gardening_ section during slow shifts. It's not as good as being outside, but the greenness and quiet are soothing. She's learned a lot about plants in those stolen moments, flipping through glossy-paged books of flowers.  
  
But this morning, she's restocking. All day the stockroom workers unpack boxes straight from the publishers and load the books onto carts. After the store closes—and the last customers have been chased out—the closers wheel the carts out into the appropriate sections, and in the morning—before the customers are allowed back in—the openers spend an hour or two shelving as many books as possible. Cosette always fights for the _Gardening_ section, not that anyone else protests too hard.  
  
She pulls the next book off her cart and smiles: _Simple Pruning Techniques For Indoor and Outdoor Fruit Trees_ , by Fauchelevent and Fauchelevent. On the cover is a large apple tree, laden with fruit; that tree stands in her backyard, and she spent many a long afternoon perched in its branches as a girl. Cosette opens the book to a random page and a sticky note flutters to the floor.

_Your father wrote this, right?_  
_-E_  
  
When Cosette turns the note over she reads _P.S. You looked nice on Monday (hope that's not creepy)_ and feels her face go bright pink.  
  
Cosette doesn't have a crush on Eponine. They haven't had a conversation since they were children, weren't friends even then. Cosette's just…interested in Eponine, that's all, in her rough laugh and floating cloud of dark hair, in the way Eponine walks through rooms like she's daring the world to challenge her right to be there, in the way she sometimes smiles at Cosette as they pass, each on her way to somewhere else.  
  
She turns the note over again, then nearly drops it when the intercom screeches to life and a crackly voice requests that all booksellers gather in the cafe for the morning shift meeting. Cosette digs a pen out of her pocket. _Yes. And thanks :)_ she scribbles on the note before tucking it back into _Simple Pruning Techniques_. The book goes onto the shelf with a fond pat, but she leaves it sticking out a half-inch, just to make sure Eponine sees.  
  
***  
  
Louison, Matelote, and Gibelotte are in the breakroom when Cosette clocks out for her lunch break, all packed onto the tiny sofa and aggressively relaxed. Louison has her feet propped up on a folding chair pulled up next to the sofa, and her head lolls on the sofa's backrest. The other two are tucked on either side of her like a Classical sculpture of the Graces, if the Graces all wore stained cafe aprons and sensible shoes. Gibelotte opens one eye halfway and waves a languid hand in greeting.  
  
Cosette puts her leftover pad thai in the microwave to heat, then perches on the sofa arm by Matelote's shoulder. "If you're all back here, who's covering the cafe?" she asks.  
  
"Nobody," Louison sighs. "Let them make their own damn coffee. Nobody's there." Gibelotte chuckles faintly and leans on Louison's shoulder; Louison pets her hair.  
  
"Oh," Matelote says, opening her eyes and sitting up straight. "Cosette. Eponine was looking for you yesterday when she got here."  
  
"I got sent home early yesterday because management couldn't afford to pay me," Cosette says, briefly annoyed as she remembers; she's barely getting half-time hours as it is.  
  
"Solidarity," Gibelotte murmurs.  
  
The Cosette's brain catches up to her ears. "Eponine was looking for me? Did she say why?" She must be blushing again, because Matelote grins at her.  
  
"Nope. Looks like she found you, though."  
  
"Cosette's got a girllllfriend," Gibelotte sing-songs.  
  
"Okay, no more out of you." The microwave dings and Cosette collects her bag and her food. "I'm going to eat outside, it's nice out," she says, mustering all her dignity. She heads for the breakroom door, and is halfway out when something occurs to her. "Louison!" she calls over her shoulder, "was that a _Homer joke?_ " but only gets soft laughter in reply.  
  
***  
  
Stuck to the cover of _Butterfly Gardening With Native Plants_ , by G. Pontmercy:  
  
_If one more person asks me where they can find The Secret I'm going to beat them over the head with it._  
_-E_  
  
_Did you hear there's a sequel coming out soon? I'm scheduled the day it's released and I'm not looking forward to it._  
_-C_  
  
_I am so sorry._  
_-E_  
  
_I worked the Breaking Dawn release party. Nothing can scare me after that._  
_-C_  
  
_You are the bravest person I know._  
_-E_  
  
Inside _Flora of the Environs of Cauterets_ , by Jean Mabeuf:  
  
_My favorite regular wrote this book! I told everyone at shift meeting but no one was as excited as I was. I guess the plant life of tiny French ski towns is just not as popular a subject as I imagined._  
_-C_  
  
_I know this guy. I volunteered at the community garden he organizes for a while last year._  
_-E_  
  
_Did you see the flowers at the customer service desk? They're from him._  
_-C_  
  
_What a sweetie. My favorite regulars are the student activists who take over the cafe every Wednesday evening, but that's because they scare away all the other customers._  
_-E_  
  
_A political organization after your own heart._  
_-C_  
  
_I'm going to run away with them. We'll annoy capitalism to death._  
_-E_  
  
_Take me with you?_  
_-C_  
  
_It wouldn't be any fun without you._  
_-E_  
  
Sticking out of _Unconventional Uses For Unusual Plants_ , by Ultime Fauchelevent:  
  
_I loved the changes you made to the Sue Grafton endcap display, although I had to scramble to get it changed back before management saw._  
_-C_  
  
_If you put large capital letters on the covers of your books, you don't get to be mad when grouchy booksellers use them to spell rude words, and if management insists on keeping the store open until 10 pm even though there are never any customers that late, they don't get to complain when their employees find their own ways of passing the time._  
_-E_  
  
_No customers except your scary student activists._  
_-C_  
  
_Bless them. Last night one of them actually started building a barricade out of the cafe furniture. Louison destroyed him, it brought a tear to my eye._  
_-E_  
  
In the _A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants_ , on the entry for "Jonquil":  
  
_Would you like to go on a date with me?_  
_-C_  
  
***  
  
Eponine doesn't respond.  
  
Cosette races back to the _Gardening_ section the next morning as soon as she's clocked in and pulls the _A-Z Encyclopedia_ off the shelf. Her note is stuck right where she left it, with no sign the book has even been opened. She flips through each book on the cart as she shelves it, but no notes flutter to the floor, and after half the cart is shelved Cosette forces herself to admit that there will be no message today. The call to morning shift meeting finds Cosette with a heavy heart, and the mood persists through the rest of her shift. She tracks down books for customers and places orders for the books that she can't find, answers phones and takes books up to the registers to be placed on hold, carries stacks of returned books back from the registers to be reshelved. Her last break finds her flopped sideways on the breakroom sofa, arms over her face, feeling sorry for herself and feeling exhausted from the effort of feeling sorry for herself for an entire shift.  
  
"Uh-oh. Who died?" Matelote kicks the breakroom door shut behind her and pulls off her apron with a sigh of relief. "Because if you're just being melodramatic, I get enough of that from the customers."  
  
"Leave me here to die," Cosette says, not moving her arms. "I'm pining."  
  
"Ah, so you _are_ being melodramatic." Matelote walks over and stands beside Cosette's head. When Cosette finally moves her arms and looks up, Matelote's upside-down face is dark, backlit against the bright fluorescent light, and her curls stick out at all angles. "Your Eponine problem?"  
  
"Yes. But you're right, this is unnecessary." Cosette shoves herself upright and sets her elbows on her knees. "I just…I really like her."  
  
"And I am not even touching your romantic troubles. Go find Louison, she's a sap, she'll let you cry on her shoulder." Matelote sits down heavily on one of the folding chairs and puts her feet up on another. "But pining doesn't suit you, Cosette."  
  
"You're right." Cosette stands up; her break is over. "I'll be better tomorrow."  
  
Matelote snorts.  
  
But Cosette does feel better the next day, at least a little. She still searches through her cart, but there's still no note, and when there continues to be no note for the next five mornings she begins to think that maybe she had the wrong idea. It's awkward and embarrassing and Cosette's heart hurts, but she's never been one to wallow in her own misery, and she'll get over it. She's been through worse.  
  
Cosette is at the service desk midway through her shift the next day, looking up a book for an elderly gentleman, when a hand touches her elbow. She jumps, spins, and it's Eponine standing there—not a note left in a book or a name on a schedule or a glimpse across the store, but a warm grip on Cosette's arm and a mouth half-open in a determined smile.  
  
"Excuse me, I'm borrowing her for a minute," Eponine says to the customer. She tugs at Cosette's arm and Cosette follows despite the fact that the customer is almost certainly going to demand to see a manager. Cosette lets Eponine lead, and is unsurprised when Eponine takes them straight to the _Gardening_ section.  
  
"You don't even work right now, what are you doing here?" Cosette asks, because she's noticed that Eponine is wearing a name tag like she's on the clock, and then mentally kicks herself—of all the inane things to ask.  
  
"I switched with Musichetta, so I work midshifts now. She started dating a few of the student activists I was telling you about, so she wanted to close so she could leave with them when her shift was over. And I wanted to work an earlier shift because, well—" Eponine looks aside and reaches up to play with the collar of her shirt. "That's why I was gone last week. I was at the courthouse, trying to get custody of my siblings away from my horrible parents."  
  
Cosette stomach tightens, and her sudden inhale must have been audible because Eponine looks up and meets her eyes, then looks away just as quickly. "What happened? Did you get it?" Cosette asks, because now is not the time to dump her own issues onto Eponine.  
  
Eponine grins broad and genuine, and Cosette smiles back because she knows what that must mean. "I did!" Eponine says. "I did, they're mine, my parents can't touch Gav and Zelma ever again," and Cosette steps forward to hug her. Eponine rests her forehead on Cosette's shoulder and giggles. Somewhere far away the intercom is paging Cosette back to the customer service desk, but she doesn't care.  
  
"Did you find my last note?" Cosette asks when they break apart, and feels her chest lighten when Eponine shakes her head. "You had more important things to think about," Cosette says. She reaches behind Eponine, pulls the _A-Z Encyclopedia_ off the shelf, and opens it to "Jonquil". She hands the note to Eponine and doesn't even have time to be nervous before another grin lights up Eponine's face.  
  
" _Yes_ ," Eponine says, and Cosette kisses her on the mouth. Eponine's a little shorter than Cosette, just enough that Cosette has to bend her head a little bit, but her arms around Cosette's waist are strong, and she kisses back as enthusiastically as Cosette feels.  
  
"I'm trying to kiss you, but I can't stop smiling," Cosette finally says, and a laugh vibrates under her palms where they rest on Eponine's back.  
  
"Probably a good thing," Eponine says. "The gardening section is, fortunately for us, in a camera blind spot, but they'll come looking for us soon."  
  
"Ugh, you're right," Cosette says. She puts the _A-Z Encyclopedia_ back on the shelf; Eponine slips Cosette's note into her pocket and takes Cosette's hand. Eponine drops her hand again before they get back to the service desk, but Cosette's palm tingles for the rest of her shift.  


**Author's Note:**

> [This](http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/sue-grafton?store=allproducts&keyword=sue+grafton) is what Sue Grafton's books look like. You can spell _all sorts of things_ with them. And the title is, of course, from the song of the same name from the musical "Pal Joey".


End file.
